Friday, March 30, 2018

Released a year into the Great Depression, the 1930 musical revue King of Jazz was a major flop. The poor box-office showing nearly crippled Universal Studios and exiled the movie to obscurity and neglect, only to be restored nearly a century later thanks to an ever-growing cult of devoted film lovers. And watching the newly minted Blu-ray of this big-screen variety show, it’s easy to see where the adulation comes from. Shot in two-strip Technicolor by Broadway mainstay John Murray Anderson (with a little advance footwork by Lonesome-director Paul Fejos), King of Jazz remains a visual wonder, complete with extravagant dance routines, creative special effects, and even the first-ever Technicolor cartoon, directed by Walter Lantz, who would go on to create Woody Woodpecker.

Following the format of other movie revues--meaning, King of Jazz is a collection of musical numbers by a variety of acts, interspersed with short comedic skits--Anderson builds his film around Paul Whiteman, an esteemed band leader, utilizing his orchestra and other stage acts that performed with them. Notable among these is the Rhythm Boys, featuring a young Bing Crosby, here making his film debut (albeit one cut short by his bad boy behavior). Anderson’s conceit is that we are peering into Whiteman’s impressive scrapbook of musical history, with each new song or performance being a turn of a page.

This could have meant for a rather stodgy presentation, but the impressive thing about this early movie musical is how Anderson and the performers alter their acts to fit the cinema screen, rather than playing for the stage. For instance, in the “My Ragamuffin Romeo” number, we witness the dangerous physicality of the dance up close, with the male dancer (Don Rose) tossing the female dancer (Marion Stadler) like the ragdoll she’s meant to be playing. Her head comes dangerously close to the floor on multiple occasions, and the thrill here is how her limber agility makes us fear for her well-being. In a live theater, they might have been able to play it safer, the distance of the audience aiding their illusion; on film, no such cheat would work.

As joyous a viewing experience as King of Jazz may be, new audiences should likely adjust their expectations before pressing play. Most likely the music here will not fit your preconceived notion of what classifies as jazz. Whiteman’s Orchestra represents the most mainstream of mainstream jazz from the time, a kind of orchestral take on the Big Band model. The bandleader’s position as “King” is highly dubious, and one can’t wonder how aware the filmmakers were of that at the time, given that the cartoon segment meant to explain how he got the name ends on the joke that it’s based on a crown-shaped bump that grows after Whiteman is conked on the head. The irony of the “King of Jazz” being a dude named “White man”--who looks like Oliver Hardy’s less hip older brother--will be lost on few, and it’s impossible not to notice that very few people of color--a Mexican singer and a little African American girl--appear in the movie. Or that a dancer photographed in the dark, his features hidden by costume and make-up, performs a “voodoo” number. Or that the final number features a bunch of different European cultures jumping into a melting pot, emerging as one shade of gold, to form American music.

That said, the quality of performance is unimpeachable, and Paul Whiteman’s bonafides are pretty secure. The conductor did do a lot to popularize the culture and give a showcase to many talented performers. Perhaps most impressive, though, is that George Gershwin wrote “Rhapsody in Blue” for the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, and the legendary tune is reprised here on a fantastic set piece, featuring a blue piano so big that it fits the full orchestra inside it and requires five different stand-ins for Gershwin to cover all the piano keys. It’s here that you can really start to see how King of Jazz is a snapshot of the time, capturing a theatrical collective that might have otherwise been lost to the ages.

Really, were they to remove the word “jazz” from the title, there would be little quibble about. King of Jazz works as its own thing, as evidenced by the 1929 All Americans short that features a different staging of the “Melting Pot” routine. Less extravagant, and more direct in black-and-white, All Americans is almost like a proof of concept for Anderson’s full-length feature the following year. The earlier version (directed by Joseph Santley) is almost as effective as the colorful redo. It’s one of several shorts included on the Criterion Blu-ray. The most significant of these is probably 1933’s I Know Everybody and Everybody’s Racket, which features both a performance by Whiteman and his Orchestra and also a post-Crosby Rhythm Boys. The short itself is fairly unremarkable. It’s a comedy centered around a night out with charmless newspaper columnist Walter Winchell.

In addition to these live-actions shorts, there are extra comedy bits from a re-release version of King of Jazz and two Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons that repurpose the animated sequence from the movie. You’ll also want to be sure to read Farran Smith Nehme’s essay in the accompanying booklet to get the full lowdown on the history of the movie, from development to failure to rediscovery.

This disc was provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Frank Borzage's 1932 adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway novel A Farewell to Arms may have been reviled by the book's author for some of the romantic liberties it took with his story, but this black-and-white melodrama deserves to be considered one of the great weepies of the early sound period.

Gary Cooper (Design for Living [review]) stars as Lt. Frederic Henry, an American who is in Italy during the First World War driving ambulances for the Italian side. On a pit stop at an army hospital, he meets Catherine Barkley (Helen Hayes, Arrowsmith [review]), a British nurse known for her chastity and dedication to duty. Frederic's pal Rinaldi (Adolph Menjou, The Front Page [review]) has designs on Catherine, but Frederic swoops in and romances the girl. He takes her virtue the night before he is due back on the front, though not without giving up more than a little of his heart in exchange.

Frederic ends up wounded on his excursion. In one of Hemingway's great ironic indictments of war, Frederic's leg is damaged when a bomb goes off and destroys the bunker where he's sitting and eating cheese--a pointless sacrifice if ever there was one. While convalescing, he and Catherine grow closer and they even commit to one another with the help of a tired priest (Jack La Rue) who believes in love. The happiness is not to last, however; Frederic must return to the battlefield. He leaves without knowing that Catherine is pregnant. She would rather not worry him, so she sneaks off to Switzerland to have the child in secret. Little do they know, they will soon lose one another. When Rinaldi fears that love will distract one of his finest men, he stops the couple's letters from getting through.

Borzage (I've Always Loved You [review]) and writers Benjamin Glazer (Carousel) and Oliver H.P. Garrett (Duel in the Sun) stick to the essential skeleton of the Hemingway novel for the film of A Farewell to Arms. There is the quick courtship, the tragic shell attack, the hospital, the pregnancy, and even Frederic's ultimate desertion. The soldier's flight from the battlefield is the most stunning sequence in Borzage's film, shown as a montage of atrocities, with battlefield and graveyard images reminiscent of Raymond Bernard's Wooden Crosses [review], released that same year. His quieter scenes behind the lines have an otherworldly, almost idyllic design to them, with the medical staff holing up in churches and the absence of civilians allowing for a certain pageantry. The women are in flowing skirts and capes, the men in their dress uniforms, complete with medals, epaulets, and fancy hats.

Gary Cooper turns in a sensitive performance as the soldier, downplaying the machismo and instead lending a dark brooding to the role. Helen Hayes is marvelous as the nurse. She pulls off a kind of ironic bait and switch, using the character's tenderness to mold a tough, unyielding figure. She is no fainting damsel, nor a woman easily taken advantage of, but one who makes difficult choices even when she feigns blinding herself to the risks. The pair has strong chemistry together, making for a particularly emotional finale. You might want to have some tissue nearby to dry your eyes when the end titles appear.

Sunday, March 25, 2018

Made for German television in 1970, Volker Schlöndorff’s adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s Baal transports the 1918 play to (then) modern day, providing filmmaking wunderkind Rainer Werner Fassbinder with an impressive showcase for his acting skills, but ultimately failing in making the work feel vital to the times. In fact, Brecht’s widow was so unhappy with it, the family estate placed a ban on the release that was not lifted until four decades later.

Baal is the story of a larger-than-life personality--a bisexual, alcoholic poet--equal parts Byron, Kerouac, and Bukowski. Fassbinder plays the bard with a full-force gusto. Baal is besotted with drink and with his own self-worth, resorting to reciting his rhymes rather than engage with others, preferring squalor to success and society. Indeed, the film’s second scene--each individual sequences is announced by numbered title cards, lending a kind of nouvelle vague tenor to the whole montage--is probably its most interesting. Decked out in a suit and tie, Baal is being hosted by a rich benefactor willing to publish his poems. Surrounded by upper crust intellectuals, Baal tweaks their noses rather than get along. He drinks too much, stuffs his face, insults them, and openly hits on the rich man’s wife (Miriam Spoerri). It’s a bit like watching the charity banquet scene in Ruben Östlund’s The Square--an animal has been let loose in the soiree. Baal’s response to their objections? You shouldn’t have invited me in if you didn’t expect me to be myself.

Which pretty much sums up how Baal conducts himself throughout the story. Anyone who enters into his orbit should expect to be brought down by his gravitational pull. At first, this is compelling in the way that the behavior of scoundrels can often be; across subsequent scenes, Baal publicly humiliates the rich man’s wife, steals the girlfriend of a loyal friend, deflowers her, and then shames her into suicide. The dude is bad news. But as Baal progresses, and we watch the main character wander from bottle to bottle, shivving anyone who stands in between, he starts to be less interesting. To Fassbinder’s credit, he never hits a false note, and the hatred he engenders in the viewer is real, but he and Schlöndorff fail to give us any nuance to the character. His philosophy never shines nor sticks. Brecht appears to provide moments where we might get glimpses of an actual soul beneath the rough exterior, but the filmmakers don’t seize on them.

That said, Baal arrives with a surprising punk rock aesthetic that has less in common with either the French New Wave and Easy Rider Hollywood than it does with the anarchic back-half of the 1970s. From the opening scenes, when a leather-jacketed Baal strolls to the beat of a song celebrating his godlike status, there is a feeling that something gutsy is occurring. Cinematographer Dietrich Lohmann, who would work with Fassbinder on many of his own films like Love is Colder Than Death, has a gritty spontaneity to his shooting. His camera never feels locked down, and so Baal comes over as improvisational as the life of its subject. That keeps the movie interesting even when the screenplay lacks heft.

Side note, but when Baal and his cohort Ekart (Sigi Graue, The Merchant of Four Seasons) hit the road in the German backwoods, was anyone else reminded of David Gordon Green’s Prince Avalanche? Knowing Green’s tastes, it would not surprise me if Baal was somehow an influence.

This disc provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.

Warren Beatty made his big-screen splash as Bud Stamper, the sports star of a small Kansas High School and the son of the local oil man, Ace Stamper (Pat Hingle). Set in 1928, a year ahead of the stock market crash, Ace is making the whole town rich, and even the Loomis family has stocks in his company. Their daughter, Wilma Dean (Natalie Wood), is Bud's sweetheart. Bud and Deanie are in love and they are prone to some heavy petting, but Deanie always stops short of letting Bud go as far as he wants to go. The hormone build-up is making Bud crazy, and Deanie is conflicted, because her mother's old-fashioned take on female sexuality goes against what her own body is telling her. Representing the newer, younger ideals, there are girls like the school tramp Juanita (Jan Norris) and Bud's scandalous sister, Ginny (Barbara Loden). Both are flappers, and both represent a kind of before-and-after picture of unleashed sexuality. Juanita is growing in popularity and seemingly having a good time without consequence, whereas Ginny has been kicked out of several schools, has had an abortion, and even has a drinking problem despite Prohibition. She is no longer welcome in polite society, and Juanita is most likely heading in that same direction.

Lust and adolescent frustration ooze from every scene. Kazan uses cramped and claustrophobic framing to emphasize how trapped the young people feel, and he crams the speakers with dialogue, gathering together crowds of people where each individual member is talking over one another and drowning out the desires and protestations of his young lovers. He also uses colors to evoke mood, the drab browns and grays of Kansas life contrasting with the soft greens of nature and the lurid red of Deanie's dress. Virginia's New Year's dress is a softer color, white satin with hints of pink and silver. It looks like a nightgown, leaving her exposed when the predatory pack of males barrels down on her. Automobiles are modern dens of sin, though the main action takes place out by the falls, the cascades of water representing sexual release, be it attainable or unattainable. For Deanie, it also provides her the outlet for her Ophelia complex; Bud, then, is her Hamlet, melancholy and indecisive.

There are also Faulknerian undertones (though, there was always a bit of Shakespeare in Faulkner). Reading between the lines, there are suggestions of improprieties with Bud's sister that possibly involve her father, and even an attraction between her and Bud when he's pushed into the fatherly role. There are also issues of class and, of course, good old fashioned Southern madness.

By contrast, the film opens up as the two teens move away from each other, eventually finding happiness on brighter, more expansive landscapes. The sex the kids are not having puts a wedge between them, and they suffer from different mental maladies. In a way, screenwriter William Inge (Bus Stop) is tying a breakdown of old-fashioned values in with the Great Depression, extending a notion that some kind of cataclysmic shift is required both personally and socially for the world to turn toward a new, more progressive day. The peril of teenage sexual frustration is also a metaphor for the entire struggle of growing up, sex being one more thing that young people can't do. Parents just don't understand how to get out of the way and let their children live their own lives. (The one exception being Deanie's father, a sweet portrait of a caring dad, played affectionately by character actor Fred Stewart.)

All of the performances in Splendor in the Grass are marvelous. Warren Beatty's tortured take on Bud would make him a star, and Natalie Wood's move from happy and hopeful to having a total nervous breakdown is achingly raw. Winona Ryder has stolen just about every move in her playbook from Natalie Wood's performance as Wilma Dean Loomis. Both of the young leads are nothing short of sensational, and Kazan backs them up with an extremely talented supporting cast. The movie is refreshingly frank for its time--and even more so for a film that takes us back to a more antiquated, supposedly more innocent period--and as a result, it still holds up. Teen angst, when done well, is timeless.

Saturday, March 17, 2018

I haven't seen a lot of movies from Luis Buñuel's Mexican period, but what I have been able to catch suggests to me that this fruitful work time often saw the surrealist director turning to more conventional stories rather than the looser, more anarchic films that bookended his creative career. 1956's Death in the Garden (La morte en ce jardin) is no exception. Based on a novel by José-André Lacour, it's one half political drama, one half adventure movie, with a lot of steamy melodrama mixed in.

Death in the Garden is set in a remote South American village that has sprung up around the area diamond mines. A military revolution is underway, and the new ruling class demands that the independent miners move off their claims, surrendering their land to the government. This inspires heated protests that threaten to split the town. The scoundrel Chark (Georges Marchal) unexpectedly wanders into this charged atmosphere on his way to Brazil. Where he's coming from is never really explained, though after he drifts into the bed of Djin (Simone Signoret, Diabolique [review]), the town madam, she gives him up to the police. They claim that the money belt he is wearing is full of stolen cash. It's not clear whether this is true. Chark resists his arrest, but he never really denies the charges.

Amidst all this are an upstanding priest (Michel Piccoli, Belle de Jour [review]), an old prospector (Charles Vanel), and his deaf-mute daughter (Michèle Girardon). All three are looking to get out of town, but the situation explodes before they can. Chark escapes from prison and joins the violent uprising, and the easily identifiable prospector, who is named Castin, is branded alongside Chark as one of the instigators and a bounty is placed on both of their heads. Castin has a pretty sizable cache of diamonds, and he's in love with Djin, who will help him escape and become his wife in hopes of inheriting his riches. She books herself passage on a pimp's boat, sneaks Castin and daughter on board, and is then much chagrined when Chark, who has a grudge against her, hijacks the ship. Oh, yeah, and the priest, Father Lizardi, is there, too.

That's a lot of plot for one movie, and that's just the first half. The cops take off in hot pursuit after the fugitives, and Chark and his crew run aground midway between the village and Brazil. They have to take the rest of the journey on foot, contending with a hostile jungle they are not prepared for. Greed and their natural selfishness begin to take over as they revert to animalistic ways. It's kind of an if-you-can't-beat-'em-join-'em scenario. Humans in the wild will become wild. Here the old rascal Buñuel gets playful, filling the speakers with the cries of jungle creatures, the sounds hedging in on the wanderers as much as the trees. It's a harsh environment where the strongest isn't always the most obvious candidate. Chark--whose name is meant to sound like "Shark," just as Lizardi is a "lizard"--kills a snake, and the snake carcass is set upon by fire ants. The closer you get to the ground, it seems, the deadlier the predator.

Buñuel stages all of this potboiler action in an exaggerated fashion. The melodrama is cranked all the way up, nuanced acting taking a backseat to bald, on-the-face-of-it emoting. Though the early part of the picture has political undertones, with Buñuel and his writers taking aim at oppressive governments and the exploitation of the working class, even before the group gets to the jungle, it's clear that man is hopelessly divided. It's every crook for himself, regardless of class. Amusingly, this means some personality switch-ups. Chark grows compassionate, becoming protective of Castin's daughter, whereas Castin becomes selfish and nihilistic. Not that he doesn't have plenty of reason to hate Chark. The tough guy ends up stealing Djin, who has softened under his impromptu leadership. While before she was willing to marry Castin for his diamond bag, she surrenders the lost jewelry she finds at the site of a plane crash to Chark as a symbol of love and partnership. Through it all, Lizardi is caught in the middle, constantly compromised--or at least caught in compromising positions. Prior to leaving town, he was found in Djin's bedroom, a humiliation he must endure rather than reveal he is there to see a wanted man.

Death in the Garden is fun to watch, full of Buñuel's trademark pranksterism and evocative imagery. He plays it larger here, enjoying the wide emotional expanse the potboiler provides him. I do think, however, that the more focused first half is more interesting. The communist-leaning message gives Death in the Garden some bite, and the action sequences and dirty dealing make for an exciting plot. The jungle trek, on the other hand, feels more conventional and overly long. The broad strokes don't work as well on the confined canvas.

Things pick back up in the final reel, when all the craziness starts to take its toll. With the Promised Land in site, the last vestiges of civility drop. It's a cynical ending, paying off on Buñuel's conceit that the bad will make good and the good will go bad, and actually full of quite a few surprises. In fact, regardless of the familiarity of the territory or even the slowness of some of the walking through it, Buñuel rarely makes the predictable choice. I assume he picked such typical stories for the intended purpose of making them atypical, and he does just that. You know, it strikes me that if this script had been shot in Hollywood at the same time as Luis Buñuel was shooting it down in Mexico, it could have been a fairly decent Raoul Walsh picture. As it is, it's a fairly decent Luis Buñuel one and worth checking out.

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

The Young Savages was the second directorial feature from John Frankenheimer, a pioneer of live television, and his first of four collaborations with Burt Lancaster. That it's the weakest of their team-ups should not be altogether surprising then, as Frankenheimer goes through some growing pains trying to apply his learned techniques and the social drama of his TV work to a larger canvas.

Lancaster stars in The Young Savages as Hank Bell, formerly Bellini, an Italian kid from a tough New York neighborhood who is now a respected district attorney. Hank is assigned a case involving three kids from his old block, including the son of one of his old girlfriends (Shelley Winters). The boys are the members of a street gang, and they are charged with a vicious stabbing of a blind Puerto Rican teenager. They claim self-defense, a story that doesn't add up. While racial tensions rise, Hank and his boss (Edward Andrews) push for the death penalty.

As Hank begins to build his case, he is pulled from many sides. His ex asks him to keep an open mind about her child, while the dead boy's mother cries for justice. Hank's partner (Telly Savalas) maintains a cynical cop's-eye view of the matter, while Hank's wife (Dina Merrill) angrily chides him for being so politically vicious. Not to mention the Italian and Puerto Rican gangleaders who send their minions to apply their own kind of pressure. This all weighs on the prosecutor as he tries to sift through the evidence and testimony. Not everything is as cut and dried as it seems.

The interviews Hank conducts with the various witnesses comprise some of the best stuff in The Young Savages, especially as Frankenheimer takes his actor to different sections of New York, shooting life on the streets in at least some attempt to counterbalance the near-cartoonish portrayal of urban juvenile delinquency. The script tackles racism with an admirable frankness, never shying away from either the unctuous bigotry of the killers or the more seemly criminal behavior of some of their Puerto Rican rivals. One gets the sense that finding the balance Hank seeks is also important to Frankenheimer. Throughout the eventual trial, when Hank is questioned about his seemingly bizarre prosecutorial tactics (he appears to be tanking the case), he insists he is just trying to find the truth.

The problem is, The Young Savages lacks the same rigor its fictional D.A. shows in his pursuit of a righteous outcome. One can feel the filmmakers straining to find ways to justify their own bias by adding challenging elements to bolster the counter-argument. This devil's advocacy comes off as overly convenient and slightly disingenuous. An attack on Hank's wife, for instance, compels her to question the empathy she has shown the accused, while Hank's own confrontation with street toughs gives him concerns about his personal bloodlust. These sequences make sense in the grand scheme of the dramaturgy, but they are poorly integrated in the whole and seem only minor distractions from a film that is not at all shy about its driving point. (Which, is not wrong in and of itself; have a point of view! It's fine!)

And it's not Hank that tanks the trial, it's Frankenheimer and his writers. Things never get messy, nor are there any unpredictable revelations. The bits we see only hit the right points and are come by too easily, hurrying too fast through the complexities that have been cultivated, rushing to bring us to Hank's inevitable redemption. At least in the eyes of the concerned white women in his life. His bosses, the press, and the victim's family? Not so much.

Still, there's a lot to like. Frankenheimer pulls of some artfully amazing shots, and his general storytelling skills are so facile, the movie never really lags. The way in which the action moves between different settings is so well choreographed, the narrative picks up a real momentum, almost like you're being led through a maze. Lancaster is really strong, as well, providing a stoic wall for other characters to bounce off. I also really liked Merrill, who allegedly never got on with Frankenheimer; her scene where she drinks too much and makes fun of Lancaster's character is edgy and funny. The actress has a good drunk shtick.

The Young Savages is also very earnest, and that both works for it and against it. As silly as its knee-jerk liberalism feels at times, the sheer force of belief combined with the talent behind it wins out. The Young Savages still has a relevancy in its dissection of race and systematic justice (or lack thereof), even if it doesn't still crackle with the same energy as 12 Angry Men [review] or other contemporaries.

Sunday, March 11, 2018

A chance flirtation that leads to a one-night stand ends up as a weekend-long affair that should affect both men involved for a lifetime.

Knightfall’s Tom Cullen plays Russell, a lifeguard in Nottingham, England, who lives a semi-closeted life alone in a high-rise flat. One night he leaves a gathering of his straight friends to go to a gay bar, where he spies Glen (Chris New). Though Glen doesn’t appear to return his interest, cut to the following morning, and the two have spent the night together. As is his wont, Glen tape-records Russell’s impressions of the previous evening’s activities for an art project he’s developing where men he sleeps with speak frankly about their sexuality--something he says gay men rarely happens in public. Straight society being as pervasive as it is, real talk about other types of sex are stifled. The conversation stirs something in both men, moving their connection from a fling to something more substantial.

Weekend is the debut feature of 45 Years-director Andrew Haigh [review], and in its way, it is the realization of the fictional Glen’s proposed ambitions. A sort of gay Before Sunrise, Weekend is an intimate glimpse of the private affair of two lovers who never expect to be together, and indeed, know that they can’t. Glen is going to leave England for America on Monday. So, the pair packs as much into their 48 hours as they can--including an extended night together, staying up and getting plastered, sharing memories, and revealing their hidden secrets. And it’s not just about their feelings and desires, but frank conversations about the sex they have had, separately and with each other. Glen being who he is, no personal act can pass without some rearview scrutinization.

The dynamic between the two men fits the paradigm of most romantic movies. One lover, Glen, is outgoing and dynamic; the other, Russell, is more shy. In this case, though, it informs who they are in ways that are different than the heterosexual paradigm. Glen’s openness has allowed him more experiences, while Russell’s reserved nature means he has kept this aspect of his life mostly to himself--and that affects how they fit not just within gay culture, but the straight world, as well. That said, Haigh doesn’t do anything as predictable as suggest that one knows himself better than the other. For Russell and Glen, how they choose to live their lives not only fits their personality for the good, but in the negative sense, it creates a certain barrier, a façade they can hide behind. And in both cases, that gives them an “out” when it comes to lasting intimacy. Both are avoiding long-term relationships for individual reasons, and both end up proving dangerous to the other’s perceived emotional safety.

Like Richard Linklater before him, Haigh doesn’t contrive typical plot machinations to keep his narrative going. Weekend doesn’t have a MacGuffin that the director can keep calling back to, nor do the characters end up in predictable situations to force reaction or change. Rather, conversation carries the action--though Weekend is less talky than Before Sunrise. Sure, the chatter turns to personal philosophies as the men share their histories, but they aren’t pondering bigger truths like third-year communications majors as a matter of course. They don’t even appear to be trying to impress one another with verbal or mental gymnastics; they are just getting along. Both Cullen and New are comfortable not just on screen, but with one another, erasing any impression of either script or improv from the their performance and instead just being.

Haigh and his tiny crew achieve a similar feeling visually. The camerawork is observational rather than designed. Photographed entirely on location, the public scenes often appear to be shot on the fly. It’s hard to tell if the other people are extras or just passersby. In the film’s emotional climax in the train station, watch the folks moving around the actors. Many appear to be aware that Russell and Glen are the focal point of something (presumably that big camera just over there). Even more fascinating is the careful, slow zoom towards the pair as they say goodbye, shot from the other side of the fence, some of the dialogue drowned out by natural ambience. Are the off-screen reactions we here from unseen commuters real or planned? It doesn’t really matter in the long run, but it’s indicative of just how immersive Weekend’s reality turns out to be.

Similarly, the physical connection between the actors appears to be just as real. Their lovemaking appears spontaneous and full of passion, serving as punctuation to the emotional connections they form. Here, Haigh is doing Glen one better--he’s not just talking about gay sexuality, he’s showing it.

In the end, however, for anyone watching Weekend, the sexual orientation of its main characters will not be as important as the humanity they share. Such is the importance of representation, and it’s where Haigh’s realism truly counts. Like another of Linklater’s films, Boyhood [review], the absence of typical screenwriter cause-and-effect means we forget the set-up and become fully invested in the lives being witnessed, moving us past pretense and preconceptions to feel something more profound. A good romantic film should leave us feeling more invested in the very idea of love than we were when we started the picture. It doesn’t matter if the lovers end up together--no one would call Roman Holiday [review] lacking in romance, for example--but how they end up in the perception of the viewer. In this, perhaps above all, Weekend is immensely successful. Were there to be a sequel, an Another Weekend, we would care how Glen got on in America, and who Russell ended up with next, and if such a sequel never come, then fine, because they will remain with us--and with each other--all the same.

Saturday, March 10, 2018

The Criterion Channel, in addition to hosting a plethora of feature films, also has a varied collection of short films--live action, animated, fiction, documentary; comedy and drama; silent and talkies.

I’ve covered a couple of them in the past--namely Kitty and Dawn, films directed by the actresses Chloë Sevigny and Rose McGowan--and going forward will check in from time to time to sample their library. Short cinema--just like short stories--is a unique art form unto itself, employing different conventions, and bringing with it different expectations, but these pieces are no less worthy of consideration than full-length films.

Art (2014; Romania; 19 minutes): A philosophical meditation on the moral quandaries of film representation, Adrian Sitaru’s Art centers around an audition for what is purportedly a movie that would depict the dangers faced by victims of human trafficking. Two filmmakers are looking for a teenage girl to play a prostitute, specifically a scene pantomiming fellatio for the camera, and after they decide one young actress has the qualities they are seeking, they try to convince her mother to let her star in the film.

What follows is a back-and-forth about the meaning of exploitation and abuse, and whether or not money and intent equals art. Some of the directors’ rhetoric strays toward the uncomfortable, and one can only question who has the girl’s true interest at heart, if anyone, and whether or not she is even capable of deciding for herself. Sitaru is self-reflexive without being cute about it, and without crossing his own line into exploiting the girl by making the actual actress do any of what is being debated for real. What makes it interesting is the denouement, following the departure of the women, when the filmmakers turn on each other, and we begin to question what even their own personal motivations are.

Unfortunately, Sitaru doesn’t end Art where he should, tagging on an ambiguous, esoteric finale that is either some kind of justification for his own ambitions or a bad joke about the pretentions of his colleagues. Or perhaps he just watched the most recent Twin Peaks. It’s a trick that distracts from the larger point rather than enhancing its meaning.

Love You More (2008; England; 15 minutes): A slice of teenage life, with a boy and a girl coming together to listen to the only copy of the Buzzcocks’ single “Love You More” for sale in the local shop. Starring Harry Treadaway (Penny Dreadful) and Andrea Riseborough (Birdman [review]), Love You More does much with very little. This is all about the quick coupling that develops from a shared interest, when love comes at 45rpm and sex lasts the 1 minute and 51 seconds between the first groove to the last. Director Sam Taylor-Johnson would eventually abandon the restraint employed here to direct Fifty Shades of Grey, but that’s the way of punk rock isn’t it? The naïve rush eventually gives way to the cynical cash grab, and the first time is impossible to recapture.

Ártún (2014; Iceland; 20 minutes): Like Love You More, this Icelandic coming-of-age story is set to a punk rock soundtrack. Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson’s mini movie follows three boys from their small town to the city to meet up with some girls and bribe them with cigarettes for kisses. Young Arnar (Flóki Haraldsson) is eager to grow up and be with a girl, but he’s still a little bit behind his friends. Thus, for him, this venture is all bravado, which soon turns to anxiousness as things look to potentially go better than expected.

Guðmundsson (Heartstone) quickly establishes his world, capturing the isolation of the rural community with a few well-chosen details. The boys don’t come from much, and they suffer abuse. Thus it quickly becomes obvious that Arnar’s sexual longing is really born of a need for general affection, a fact that Guðmundsson manages to convey with a disarming tenderness, even as he undercuts it with basic human cruelty.

Tord and Tord (2010; Sweden; 11 minutes): A fox returns home to find a mirror image of his apartment where a rabbit who shares the same name (hence, Tord and Tord has taken up residence. Created via stop-motion animation evocative of Wes Anderson, this little film is an askew fairy tale from Niki Lindroth von Bahr. It doesn’t add up to much, but the look of it is charming and the length just right for those looking for a quick amusement.

Five Miles Out (2009; England; 18 minutes): Director Andrew Haigh (45 Years [review]) creates a mysterious puzzler. Sent on a trip with relatives to escape troubles at home, Cass (Dakota Blue Richards, The Golden Compass) meets a prickly young boy (Thomas Malone) on his way to a secret cave accessible only by swimming through an underground tunnel. Fearful for the boy’s life, she initially dissuades him from going, and then sits guard the next day when he finally does.

The tension during that wait is excruciating, especially if you can imagine the darkness that must await the youngster once he is below the surface. Haigh is all about holding back here, letting Richards only hint at her emotions. Just like we don’t know what is down in the hole, we can sometimes only guess what the girl must be experiencing.

Also available on the Weekend Blu-ray [review]. Likewise for Haigh’s 2005 six-minute short Cahuenga Blvd, a sketch in verité that doesn’t have nearly the emotion or intrigue of the auteur’s later work.

Subscribe

About Me

Author of prose novels and comic books like Cut My Hair, It Girl & the Atomics, You Have Killed Me, and 12 Reasons Why I Love Her. Jamie's most recent novel is the serialized book Bobby Pins and Mary Janes, and his most recent graphic novels are the sci-fi romance A Boy and a Girl with Natalie Nourigat; Madame Frankenstein with Megan Levens; and the weird crime comic Archer Coe & the Thousand Natural Shocks with Dan Christensen. He also co-created Lady Killer with Joëlle Jones.